Assessment of the pressure distribution of powered and non-powered hospital mattresses to reduce pressure injury risk

Objective

Pressure injuries (PIs) are a burden because they cause pain, prolong hospital stays, and increase mortality. Especially for individuals who are bedridden, the support surface is one of the main factors influencing the PI risk. Therefore, we quantitatively assessed the interface pressures of four hospital mattresses aiming to reduce the risk of PI of our patients by an optimized mattress selection.

Methods

We assessed the pressure distribution and median peak pressure on the sacrum and trochanter in supine, semi-fowler and lateral position with a pressure-measuring mat on four different mattresses using eight healthy subjects.

Results

The observed pressure distribution varied significantly between mattresses. Despite a subject and body position dependent peak pressure, the relative performance of the mattresses was consistent across subjects. In the Semi-fowler position, median peak pressure was lowest on the Powered_FIS mattress (25.7 mmHg), followed by Non-powered_foam (35.6 mmHg), Powered_air (43.5 mmHg) in continuous mode, and highest on the Non-powered_hybrid mattress (55.5 mmHg).

Conclusion

Pressure measurements can be used as an objective tool that can assist the process of selecting a mattress. Extra attention should be focused on assessing hybrid mattresses as the pressure distribution can be considerably worse in the reactive state when compared to a dedicated reactive mattress.